Revelation
A vision for persecuted churches, in pictures, ending with everything made new.
Who wrote it: A man named John, writing from exile on the island of Patmos. Tradition says the apostle; many scholars think a different John, since the Greek is very unlike the Gospel's. Usually dated to the mid 90s AD under the emperor Domitian, sometimes the late 60s under Nero.
What it is
Revelation is a letter, a prophecy and an apocalypse at once, and if you forget the first part you will misread the rest. It opens with John on Patmos, in exile for his faith, seeing the risen Jesus with eyes like fire, and being told to write to seven real churches in what is now western Turkey. Chapters 2 and 3 are those seven letters: Ephesus has lost its first love, Smyrna is about to suffer, Laodicea is lukewarm and rich. Every one ends with 'to him who overcomes'. The whole book was written for people trying to overcome.
Then the door in heaven opens. A throne, worship, a scroll nobody can open, and a Lion announced who turns out, when John looks, to be a Lamb standing as though slain. That switch is the key to the book: the way God wins is the way Jesus won, and it looked like losing. What follows is a series of visions in sevens: seals, trumpets, bowls, each cycle showing judgment on a world that has set itself against God, interrupted by scenes of the people of God being sealed, protected, singing. A dragon tries to devour a child and fails. Two beasts rise, one political, one religious, and demand worship; the number of the first is 666. Babylon, a city drunk on the blood of the saints, is described in detail that first-century readers would have recognized as Rome, and falls in a single hour.
Then the rider on the white horse, the dragon bound, a thousand years (the most argued-over passage in the book), a final judgment, and chapters 21 and 22: a new heaven and a new earth, a city coming down out of heaven like a bride, God living with people, every tear wiped away, no more death or mourning or crying or pain, a river, a tree whose leaves heal the nations, and no temple because God and the Lamb are the temple. The book ends with an invitation to anyone thirsty to come, and a prayer: come, Lord Jesus.
Almost everything in it is a picture, and most of the pictures are borrowed from the Old Testament: Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Zechariah, Exodus. Readers who knew those books would have heard the echoes. Readers who try to match each image to a modern headline have been doing so for two thousand years, and every generation has been sure it was theirs. What the first readers needed to hear was simpler: the empire that is crushing you is not the last word, the Lamb is on the throne, hold on. That is still what it says.
Read it, at least the first time, for the worship and the ending rather than the timeline. The songs in chapters 4, 5, 7 and 19 are where the church got most of its hymns, and chapters 21 and 22 are the fullest picture in the Bible of what everything is for.
Verses worth keeping
17When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, “Don’t be afraid. I am the first and the last, 18and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsWhen I saw him I collapsed at his feet like a dead man. He put his right hand on me and said, 'Don't be afraid. I'm the First and the Last, the Living One. I was dead, and look, I'm alive for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of Death and of the grave.'
The first thing the risen Jesus does in the book is touch a terrified man and say don't be afraid.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with me.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsLook, I'm standing at the door, knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I'll come in and eat with them, and they with me.
Said to Laodicea, a church, not an unbeliever. Jesus is outside his own church, asking to be let in.
They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsThey beat him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they didn't cling to their lives, even when it meant dying.
How the dragon is defeated: not by force. By the cross, by speaking up, and by not being ruled by fear of death.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsHe'll wipe every tear from their eyes. There won't be death any more, or mourning, or crying, or pain. The old order has gone.
The most read verse at funerals. Notice it says God does the wiping himself.
He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus!
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsThe one who says all this promises: 'Yes, I'm coming soon.' Amen. Yes, come, Lord Jesus!
The Bible's second-to-last verse is a prayer. The church has been praying it ever since.
Read Revelation
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Revelation 21
1I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
5He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.” 6He said to me, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. 8But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
9One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls which were loaded with the seven last plagues came, and he spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” 10He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 11having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; 12having a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. 13On the east were three gates, and on the north three gates, and on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
15He who spoke with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. 16The city is square. Its length is as great as its width. He measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand twelve stadia. Its length, width, and height are equal. 17Its wall is one hundred forty-four cubits, by the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. 18The construction of its wall was jasper. The city was pure gold, like pure glass. 19The foundations of the city’s wall were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, 20the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21The twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each one of the gates was made of one pearl. The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
22I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23The city has no need for the sun or moon to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it and its lamp is the Lamb. 24The nations will walk in its light. The kings of the earth bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. 25Its gates will in no way be shut by day (for there will be no night there), 26and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it so that they may enter. 27There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Questions about Revelation
Is Revelation about the end of the world?
Partly. It ends with a new heaven and a new earth. But most of it was written to seven specific churches about pressures they were facing then, and 'Babylon' would have meant Rome to any first-century reader. Christians read the book in at least four ways: as mostly about the first century (preterist), as a map of church history (historicist), as mostly about the future (futurist), or as a picture of the struggle between God and evil in every age (idealist). Many combine them. The book itself says it is about 'things which must happen soon' and also about the end of everything, so all the camps have a verse.
What is 666?
Revelation 13:18 says the number of the beast is the number of a man, six hundred sixty-six, and invites the reader to work it out. Letters had numerical values in Hebrew and Greek, and 'Nero Caesar' in Hebrew letters adds up to 666 (and to 616 in an alternative spelling, which some early manuscripts have). Most scholars think that is the answer. Others take it as a symbol of falling short of seven, the number of completeness, three times over. It is not a barcode or a microchip.
Does Revelation teach the rapture?
The word does not appear and neither does the idea of believers being removed before a tribulation; the churches in Revelation are told to endure through it. The rapture teaching comes mainly from 1 Thessalonians 4 read alongside Daniel and Revelation in a system developed in the 1830s. Many Christians hold it; most of church history did not. Revelation's own picture is God coming down to live with people, not people being taken away.
What is the millennium in Revelation 20?
A thousand-year reign of Christ with the saints, mentioned in six verses and nowhere else in the Bible. Premillennialists expect it as a literal future period after Christ returns. Postmillennialists expect it as a golden age before he returns. Amillennialists read it as a symbol of the present age between the resurrection and the return. All three have been held by serious Christians, and none is a test of orthodoxy.